FROM THE PUBLISHER

Now in paperback: the Lambda Literary Award Finalist about "a sophisticated, overheated lesbian world in Paris in the first decades of the twentieth century. A great story, beautifully told." —Edmund White. Born a scant three months after her uncle Oscar's notorious arrest, raised in the shadow of the greatest scandal of the turn of the twentieth century, Dolly Wilde attracted people of taste and talent wherever she went. Brilliantly witty, charged with charm, a "born writer," she drenched her prodigious talents in liquids, burnt up her opportunities in flamboyant affairs, and died as she lived—repeating her uncle's history of excess, collapse, and ruin. In this biography, Joan Schenkar has created both a captivating portrait of Dolly and a cultural history of Natalie Clifford Barney's remarkable Parisian salon—frequented by Janet Flanner, Mina Loy, Djuna Barnes—in which she shone so brightly.

FROM THE CRITICS

Simon Callow

The book is an absolute winner. —The Mail

Daily Telegraph

At last Dolly Wilde...has found a biographer with the intelligence, sensitivity and flamboyance to write the work of art that was her life.

Publishers Weekly

Dolly Wilde, born the year Oscar Wilde went to prison, bore a striking resemblance to her famous uncle and spent her life both burdened and animated by his legend. She inherited much of his charm, a portion of his wit and none of his genius. Consequently, she left behind little of substance save the fond recollections of her friends and lovers, among them salon hostess Natalie Clifford Barney, New Yorker Paris correspondent Janet Flanner and Russian actress Alla Nazimova, and several bundles of love letters. Such a dearth of achievement leaves a biographer at a considerable disadvantage. The playwright Joan Schenkar, who appears to have fallen as much under Dolly's spell as any of her contemporaries, resolves these difficulties by approaching Dolly's life thematically, inventing and dramatizing in the absence of fact, interpreting what facts there are from a variety of perspectives. Such an approach requires her to ignore chronology and with it whatever impact the larger historical and political context may have had on Dolly's development. What emerges is a flamboyant sketch of that glittering, often frantic, sometimes brilliant society of rich lesbians that flourished between the wars in London and Paris. In this milieu, Dolly seems a kind of lesbian Zelda Fitzgerald, self-destructive, addicted, often foolish and, by the end of her brief life, quite sad. Schenkar strives valiantly to make of Dolly's life a tragic work of art. While she is able to convey Dolly's charm and attractiveness, she is not quite as successful in convincing the reader that her subject is sufficiently consequential to merit a full-length biography. Illus. (Nov. 30)

Library Journal

Dorothy Irene (Dolly) Wilde (1895-1941), who should have been an extraordinary talent during the Modernist period, died alone at the age of 46 of mysterious circumstances after a tumultuous life of glamorous poverty and drug and alcohol use. Nearly forgotten through the passage of time, lovely lost Dolly's troubling history is brought to light by experimental playwright Schenkar (Signs of Life: Six Comedies of Menace). Using snippets from Dolly's letters and quotes from interviews given by her Left Bank intimates, Schenkar, in this thematic biography, relates the life of a woman who was heir to the rich literary gifts of her famous uncle Oscar yet was never able to put pen to paper and write something beyond a wittily executed note to a friend on borrowed stationery. Schenkar does an admirable job of making Dolly's sometimes bleak life (as sparkling raconteur and eternal houseguest) fascinating; and her tone is light and engaging, almost as one might imagine Dolly's would be if she were telling her own story.--Kimberly L. Clarke, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Sarah E. Chinn - The Advocate